Sundial

The present sundial along G. Apacible Street.[1]

The Sundial is one of the earliest devices used by man to tell time. It is a device that measures time as an effect of the earth's movement with reference to the position of the sun.

History

The UP sundial’s history is closely linked with that of the College of Engineering, for wherever the college went a sundial followed.

The first site for the college was a residential house of the O’Brien family in Ermita. On September 1910 it moved to where the Philamlife building currently stands. They had a small sundial then at the corner of Taft and Padre Faura but upon moving in 1930 to Maria E. Orosa now the current building of the Court of Appeals, a much larger sundial was built. This was in the middle of the Ermita campus.

The dean of the College at that time was Edward R. Hyde. He had first come to the college in 1920. Mr. Hyde was an American civil engineer who had previously taught at West Point. Aside from being the Dean Mr. E. R. Hyde is also attributed to the designing of the engineering building and the huge sundial which was bedecked with flowering vines and had a gnomon of 60ft in length. Professors Alejandro Melchor and E.P. Angeles, were said to be seen tramping across the campus to inspect the construction of the sundial project which the three of them collaborated in designing. It was said to be one of the largest sundials of its time. However, it was torn down during the commonwealth era to to provide more space for military training which was emphasized at the time.

When the seat of the UP System transferred to the Diliman Campus, several alumni engineers built a testament of loyalty to their Alma Mater in the form of a giant sundial. The UP Alumni Engineers (UPAE) of 1957 built the UP Sundial on the front lawn of Melchor Hall, to the west side by the corner of Osmena and Roces Avenues in 1958. It was made of steel on concrete moorings with a gnomon in the shape of a slide rule, at the time the symbol of mathematical skill.

Unfortunately, the disastrous Typhoon Yoling dislocated the steel engineering sundial from the west front of the building and carried it some distance away towards the street in 1968. [2]

• 
  The first sundial at the Manila Campus during the 1920's.
• 
  Sundial at the west lawn of Melchor Hall

Present

After four years since Typhoon Yoling destroyed the sundial, the UP Alumni Engineers started the construction of the present-day sundial in 1972. It is a sturdier, all-concrete structure designed by Quintin R. Calderon during his UPAE Presidency from 1971-1972 with her daughter Chato Calderon, the first lady president of the UPAE, as a supervising engineer. [3]

However, the sundial's location was moved from the front of the engineering building to the space between the engineering east wing and the UP Alumni Engineers building along G. Apacible Street. At the base of the gnomon is a date, 1947, which marks the Alumni Engineers' founding year.

With the National Center Building at the east side, the UP Sundial will be at the middle of the engineering complex in Diliman. The sundial and the UP Alumni Engineers are the tangible manifestations of Engineering alumni regard and loyalty to their Alma Mater.

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Sources

• Sites and symbols : UP Diliman landmarks. Quezon City : Office of the Chancellor, University of the Philippines, 2000. p38-41.

• UPAE 1980 Yearbook and Alumni Directory, UPAE, College of Engineering, UP Diliman, Quezon City.

• Ingenium 2008. UPAE, College of Engineering, UP Diliman, Quezon City, p 72.

See Also

• Digital Sundial